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Jenny Slate Opens Up About Split From Chris Evans: 'Last Year Was a Giant, Big Year for My Heart'

By Elisa Osegueda 10:13 AM PDT, March 21, 2017

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Jenny Slate is mending her broken heart.

The Gifted star split from Chris Evans earlier this year, after less than a year of dating. The two began a romantic relationship in May 2016, and made their red carpet debut just one month later at the New York City premiere of her film, The Secret Life of Pets.

In a new interview with Vulture, Slate candidly talks about her relationship with the Captain America star and reveals what ultimately led to their breakup.

“He’s a lovely person,” she says when asked if she felt comfortable discussing her relationship with Evans. “I don’t know. It feels like such a huge thing. Last year was a giant, big year for my heart. I’ve never, ever thought to keep anything private because that’s not really what I’m like, and now I’m learning those things, and they’re weird, kind of demented lessons to learn.”

"Chris is truly one of the kindest people I’ve ever met," she adds. "He’s really vulnerable, and he’s really straightforward. He’s like primary colors. He has beautiful, big, strong emotions, and he’s really sure of them. It’s just wonderful to be around. His heart is probably golden-colored, if you could paint it.”

The two met at her chemistry read for the indie film Gifted, in which they both starred. “I remember him saying to me, ‘You’re going to be one of my closest friends,'" she recalls. "I was just like, ‘Man, I f**king hope this isn’t a lie, because I’m going to be devastated if this guy isn’t my friend.’”

Over the course of filming the Marc Webb drama, Slate says she grew closer to Evans, although they didn't fall for each other on set.

“To be quite honest, I didn’t think I was his type,” she says. “Eventually, when it was like, Oh, you have these feelings for me?, I was looking around like, Is this a prank? I mean, I understand why I think I’m beautiful, but if you’ve had a certain lifestyle and I’m a very, very different type of person — I don’t want to be an experiment.”

Despite their chemistry, Slate admits that their differences were pretty obvious. “Chris is a different speed than me — I think he really did just jump out of a plane for an interview," she explains.

"We’re really, really different,” she continues. “Chris is a very, very famous person. For him to go to a restaurant is totally different than for me to go. I sit in my window and I say ‘Hi’ to people on the street. I have more freedom because I’m not Captain America. I’m mostly a cartoon.”

In the end, Slate admits all she really wanted were for things to be feel normal again, and for that to happen she needed to take matters into her own hands.

“When Chris and I started dating, my husband and I had only been separated for a couple of months,” she shares, adding that her divorce unraveled while she was at the Sundance Film Festival, after things ended with Evans.

“Even though we had an amicable divorce, I think that’s still something that you need to mourn. When you get separated from somebody that you actually care about, it is the destruction of a belief system. That is really, really sad,” she notes. “I just didn’t have the tools. And I didn’t think very hard about that, to be honest. I wanted to step into the light. Chris is a sunny, loving, really fun person, and I didn’t really understand why I should be prudent.”

As for her current relationship with Evans, “We’re not on bad terms, but we haven’t really seen each other, spoken a lot,” she says. “I think it’s probably best. I’d love to be his friend one day, but we threw down pretty hard. No regrets, though. Ever.”